Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca are close friends. Juan Marichal placed a call to John Roseboro's deathbed to say he was praying for him this summer. And San Francisco's most notorious brawl this season was between Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent, not the Giants and the Dodgers.

But if the rivalry is no longer is as fierce as it once was, here we are again anyway, entering September's final two weeks with San Francisco and Los Angeles opening a four-game series at Dodger Stadium that will help determine which team goes to the postseason and which goes to the golf course. The Diamondbacks are solidly in first place in the National League West but the wild card remains up for grabs and the one-game gap between the Giants and Dodgers is so narrow you can barely see it through Eric Gagne's glasses.

Big rivals, big games

The Dodgers and Giants have battled in several races since they moved west in 1958: 2001 Giants finished 2 games behind Diamondbacks in NL West as Dodgers took 2 of 3 in final series. 2000 Dodgers finished second, but 11 games behind Giants. 1997 Giants finished 2 games up. Giants won both games played against each in September, including a 6-5, 12-inning win (Brian Johnson's homer won it). 1993 Giants won 103 games, 1 back of Atlanta. L.A. knocks out S.F. with 12-1 win on final day. 1991 Dodgers finished 1 back of Braves. Eliminated as Giants take two straight in final series. 1982 Both enter final weekend 1 game behind Atlanta. Dodgers eliminate Giants with two wins, then Giants beat Dodgers on final day (Joe Morgan's HR). 1971 Giants edge Dodgers by 1 game. 1966 Dodgers beat Giants by 1.5 games. 1965 Giants were 4 up with 12 to play ... Dodgers went 11-1, Giants 5-7 and L.A. won pennant by 2 games. 1962 Tied for pennant; Giants won 3-game playoff, 2 to 1 (scored 4 runs in ninth inning of Game 3 to win, 6-4). 1959 Giants led Dodgers by 3 games on Sept. 6, but Dodgers finished 15-5, including 3-game sweep of S.F., to win pennant. -- ESPN.com

True, they're only playing for the wild card and that race probably will go down to San Francisco's season-ending series at home against Houston. But this is the last meeting of the year between the Dodgers and Giants, the aroma of Dodger Dogs fills the nostrils, Vin Scully's eloquent voice fills the airwaves, gas-hogging SUVs fill the parking lot and another chapter is about to unfold in baseball's most enduring rivalry.

Brooklyn and New York, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Giants-Dodgers rivalry is as dependable as a cold one and a bag of peanuts in the bleachers.

I can already hear the "Yankees Suck" chants from Boston and New Yorkers undoubtedly are already overloading my email account in protest. And I grant them, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is fiercer and more passionate, but the Giants-Dodgers rivalry is more consistent, and in some ways, even better.

In the Dodgers-Giants rivalry, one team doesn't feast at the expense of its rival. The Giants have won the pennant 17 times and the World Series five times while the Dodgers have been to the World Series 18 times and won it six times. They're as even as Betty and Veronica. On the other hand, since selling Babe Ruth to New York, the Red Sox have been to the World Series four times, winning none, while the Yankees have been to the series 38 times, winning 26. They're as even as the Quaid brothers.

The Giants and Dodgers also crush their rival's hopes with the remorseless regularity of an IRS audit. Since the 1951 season, the Giants and Dodgers have finished first and second nine times, and within a couple games of each other and first place two other times. Almost as importantly, the Giants and Dodgers have frequently played spoilers to each other. In 1982 and 1991, the Giants beat the Dodgers the final weekend to keep Los Angeles out of the playoffs. The Dodgers returned the favor in 1993 and again last year. Balkan nations don't even the score among themselves that often.

The Yankees and Red Sox, meanwhile, went from 1951-1976 without ever finishing within 10 games of each other in the same season one of the two teams won a title. That's a quarter-century without a September game between them that meant something to both teams. Granted, the Yankees and Red Sox have finished first and second in the AL East five times in the past seven seasons (and will do so a sixth time this year) but that's a little deceiving. Because both reached the playoffs in three of those years, one team's success usually didn't come at the direct expense of the other the way the Giants and Dodgers fortunes so often have.

In other words, when do Yankees fans ever moan about how the Red Sox ruined a season for them?

Boston fans, however, sell "Yankees Suck" T-shirts outside other sporting events and chant it when the Yankees aren't within a thousand miles of Fenway Park. Giants and Dodgers fans keep things in better perspective. They don't like each other but they don't turn their rivalry into a pathetic obsession.

So those fans will crowd Dodger Stadium this week and tune in to the Bay Area broadcasts, root for Barry Bonds and Shawn Green, second-guess Dusty Baker and Jim Tracy, hope the Astros don't sneak into the race, and keep alive a rivalry that extends back thousands of miles and several generations.

Remember: Jackie Robinson retired rather than wear a Giants uniform.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.